


Dragonriders Fly When Reapers Fill The Sky

by wargoddess



Series: Mass Dragon Ages of Mecha Pern [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Evangelion - Freeform, Gundams, M/M, Magical Girls, Maybe even Tenchi Muyo, Mecha, RahXephon - Freeform, WTF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:11:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6431335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dragon Age plus Dragonriders of Pern plus Mass Effect plus several different mecha anime, because I felt like it, that's why. In a posthuman futuristic Pern, the Reapers have come. But the Pernese are old hat at fighting alien menaces from the sky, and they've resurrected their ancient protectors in a shiny new form.  Bronze rider Cullen -- uh sorry C'len -- and green rider Carver (K'ver) must find a way to prepare Kirkwall Weyr for an imminent Reaper offensive.  C'len is meant to be paired with Weyrwoman Meredith... but it is K'ver whom he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragonriders Fly When Reapers Fill The Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sorrowfulcheese](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrowfulcheese/gifts), [JoAsakura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/gifts), [tanukiham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanukiham/gifts), [sysrae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysrae/gifts).



> I promise am not high. Katschy and Joasakura (since your Dark Road series is a partial inspiration for this too), I hope you're happy. LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE. Sysrae, thanks for the dragon names. THIS IS YOUR FAULT TOO.
> 
> For everyone else, what you are about to behold is... hard to describe. Basically, What If, long after Thread was eradicated, the Reapers came to a Pern which had since morphed into a futuristic posthuman society? And which, instead of building spaceships, decided on a completely different form of defensive technology? And which just happened to contain a lot of people and place-names from Thedas? And I ignore most of McCaffrey's weird gender essentialism and creepy homophobia because who wants that in their fiction anyway?
> 
> Yeah, just go with it.

     He's a beautiful thing, down on the landing platform.  Turning, languid, body shining with sweat, face alight with something that might be bloodlust or just lust-lust.  Or possibly just the sheer joy of living?  C'len can't tell.  It's something he's never felt himself, regardless -- something that this man feels with utter abandon, and with a careless selfishness that C'len envies.  Everyone else on the platform is in armor, but not this fellow:  he has stripped to the waist, thrown off even his boots, and stands clad in nothing but trousers and black tattoos and a sharp-toothed grin.  C'len stares down at this and finds his mouth wet with saliva.  His hands tighten on the metal railing until the knuckles show white.  He forces them to relax, so the woman accompanying him won't see.  What is this?

     The man turns and by chance his eyes meet C'len's.  They are bright blue, glazed with whatever flavor of lust that he's caught up in.  Does that gaze linger?  C'len wants it to linger.  But then the eyes shift away, and the man returns to his brutal business.

     What _is_ this?

     C'len's other self stirs in the _between_ of flesh and identity.   <<Desire,>> Honnleath says, thoughtfully.  C'len feels the dragon considering the young man, then searching the aethers for _his_ other self.   <<Ah.  She's lovely.>>  The image of a lithe draconic form appears in C'len's mind:  shimmering green light and taste of tart apples, with a certain wickedness in the set of her golden eyes.  A deep, visceral stirring of interest from Honnleath.  <<She's flying now.  Too far away already to catch, though.>>

     C'len licks his lips.  A mating flight.  But the young man is _fighting_ , down below, amid the circle of his suitors.  A massive omni-blade greatsword is in his hands, and he wields it with brutal grace.  Set to sparring mode, at least, each strike taking down his opponents with electric shocks and biofeedback via their armor; there's a circle of half-conscious people groaning all around him.  Only two suitors still stand:  a lean, tanned man with white hair who circles slowly, wielding a similar large omni-blade, and a beautiful dark-skinned woman with a wicked smile and two monomolecular daggers in her hands.  C'len inhales at the last.  _Those_ can't be set to sparring mode.  Hopefully she's good enough to avoid killing anyone.

     The woman beside C'len sighs.  "One of our more troublesome cases," she says in a tone of disapproval.  Her voice is edged even when she speaks casually, but of this young man, she speaks razors.  She is Meredith, beholden to golden Ameliath, Weyrwoman and de facto Weyrleader of Kirkwall Weyr.  Something about this young man irritates her.

     C'len attempts to sound politely interested instead of rabidly so.  "Who is he?"

     "K'ver, wingleader and rider of green Lotherinth.  Sent to us seven years ago from the remnants of Ferelden Weyr after they were overrun, along with his queen-riding older sister."  Meredith's lip curls.  "I sent the sister on.  She's joined Skyhold Weyr now.  _This_ one stayed, though, against my recommendation."  She shakes her head.  "He knows the line to walk, and does nothing that would give me cause to censure him, but they were... unorthodox, at Ferelden."

     She says _unorthodox_ like it is a curse.  C'len swallows again, unable to take his gaze from the tableau below.  Unorthodox indeed.  There are only two safe ways to vent the rampant sexual energy of a mating flight, for varying values of _safe_.  C'len has lived the more common method:  sex, just sex, mindless and feverish and violent, and sometimes shameful in the aftermath.  The other method -- this -- is frowned upon because of the danger.  One slip of a dagger, one lust-addled mind forgetting to change the blade settings, and Pern's Aerospace Defense Force loses a precious dragon as well as a rider.  C'len has never seen a mating battle before, and yet now that he has, he wants to be down there, measuring his omni-shield against that sword.  Looking into those blue eyes and meeting that near-feral smile with one of his own.  Defeating him?  No, that would be impossible.  But courting him, perhaps, with skill and ferocity, and proving himself as worthy of the man as his Honnleath is of K'ver's dragon --

     "Perhaps he'll be your problem to deal with," Meredith says.  She throws him a thin, humorless smile, and C'len remembers to nod at the none-too-subtle reminder that he is here for her.  Kirkwall Weyr needs a strong bronze persona to balance its queen hub gestalt, and improve the artificial intelligence production lines.  Meredith needs a strong co-leader to balance her high-handedness, and restore morale and stability to a weyr on the brink of mutiny.  The world is at war.  Alien monstrosities fall from the sky to devour the world, if they can.  The other weyrleaders of Pern have conferred and sent C'len to Kirkwall to -- perhaps -- save it from itself.

     He is here for Meredith.  But Meredith is not who he wants.

     Honnleath flicks his tail in C'len's mind, but the dragon keeps his own counsel sometimes.

#

     Midnight.  Reaperfall.

     The barrage begins right when their planning AIs have predicted.  Against the starry sky it's actually hard to see the seething balls of dark energy and unstable matter as they streak down through the atmosphere, at first.  The dragons know their enemy, however.  C'len, on great Honnleath's arched neck, bares his teeth along with his dragon as the enemy appears.  His blood fires with battle-rage, but he controls it and raises a fist so the other members of his wing of bronzes and browns will see and likewise hold.  _Not yet_.  Their growls of impatience echo in his mind, but they keep hovering.  The long, serpentine hard-light bodies of the dragons shimmer and flicker, living energy lit further by the building charge of biotic static.  Their wings beat and spark in march-precise syncopation.  Whatever other complaints C'len has about Meredith's leadership, her dragons are bright and strong, excellent fighters.  There aren't enough of them -- the weyr is understrength because it has only one queen, and a poor producer at that.  Aside from this, however, Kirkwall Weyr stands ready to meet her ancient foe.

     One of the descending knots breaches the troposphere, and C'len's fist splays into an open hand.  Now.  The dozen human minds of his wing link into his, amplified by the dozen minds of the dragons.  He modulates the differing wavelengths of thought carefully in order to reduce lag, then offers this connection to the hub that is Meredith/Ameliath, far below.  She shouts (they shout) a challenge, and a thousand draconic and human throats answer.

     They explode at the enemy in streaking light and eezo-fueled biotic fire.  C'len angles his wing upward, into the stratosphere, where Honnleath and the other larger dragons can take on the biggest knots of Reaper contagion before they have time to spread out and increase the chance of planetfall.  The smaller dragons will be responsible for catching whatever C'len's teams miss.  Honnleath curves through the sky, a magnificent silver-bronze streak, and abruptly lunges as he sees (they see) a larger clot of matter.  Honnleath's lips draw back from his teeth, and then his teeth part, and then blue-black eezo gas belches forth from the dragon's throat.  (C'len opens his mouth to shout into his helmet.)  It ignites on contact with the air and blasts the Reaper mass with white hot plasma fire, burning it from the bottom up.  Figures scream and writhe in the flames -- probably Banshees, given the size and composition of the mass.  Dead ones, now, unable to threaten the people of Pern.

     _Yes_ , C'len thinks.

     <<Yes,>> agrees Honnleath, in nearly the same instant.

     SYNC RATE: 52%, C'len's heads-up display notifies him.

     And so it goes.  Down to flame a scattered clump of husks.  Up, Honnleath's wings pounding the thinning air, to meet another clump.  It is the dragons who do all the true fighting during a Reaperfall; only their artificial minds can perform the millions of near-instantaneous calculations needed to hack the Reaper mass shielding so that the eezo flames can do their work.  C'len is little more than an armored paperweight on the dragon's back for this part of the battle -- feeding Honnleath additional lumps of eezo when the dragon needs them, maintaining a constant psychic network linkage between himself and the other riders in order to prevent midair collisions and receive instructions.

     But.  One of the other bronze riders spots it first, and the realization rings through all of them like a struck bell.  _Reaper!_   C'len looks up and sees it too, spidery shape tiny but growing rapidly against the night sky.  Maker, it's a capital ship, too; a monster.  And at the sight of it...

     ...C'len grins.

     "Come, my love," he whispers, and Honnleath roars in rage and brutal delight.  He makes another signal and the wing begins to fly faster, hot on his lead.  SYNC RATE: 74%.  Faster, curving upward.  Faster, ignoring the concussion around them as they break the sound barrier, faster as they pierce the mesosphere and the light of the dragons' shapes begins to blur with dopplering FTL effects.  And then

     SYNC

     _And then_

     RATE

     _Oh my love we are one forever_

     85% OPTIMUM UNLOCK UNLOCK UNLOCK

     Honnleath flies apart, his hard-light form disintegrating into a shower of particles.  C'len shouts, his will clamping down on the dragon's, and the light re-forms in an instant -- into a shape that is no longer draconic but humanoid, no longer solid light but shining metal.  C'len flings out his left arm and it is meters long, hissing with servomotors and hydraulics as the fingers close around the handles of an omni-shield as big as a skyscraper.  He curls his right hand and in it materalizes a longsword ablaze in glowing orange.  His skin is ablative armor.  His blood is refined liquid eezo.  His body is no longer the puny, unnecessary thing on a dragon's back; now he is the CPU of a biomechanoid warrior, his consciousness one and the same with that of the AI called Honnleath.  Now they are C'len, Knight-Dragon of the Weyr, and they stand (he stands) before the corrupt and the wicked.  _We will not falter_.

     They are (he is) done with the transformation and streaking hot through the icy thermosphere before the other dragons of their (his) wing have even fully dissolved.  The Reaper -- thrice C'len's size, a hideous creature that is plainly inspired by organic life though like nothing that has ever walked upon Pern's surface -- sees them coming and blats out its basso, air-shaking war cry.  It uncurls its phlanges, dripping red plasma fire, to grab at them.  One touch and he dies.  In this form, however, C'len is too fast for it.  He lunges between its digits and whips his sword in an arc, slicing at the vulnerable joints as he passes.  The Reaper screams as one of its fingers is sliced away -- but it has many others. 

     The other Knight-Dragons of the wing are at his side, though, also one in will and intent.  <<Die,>> they all think, and the Reaper's minutes are numbered by the strikes of their swords.

     When it is done, the pieces of the Reaper streak too as they fall toward the ground below.  Some of it gets caught by the members of C'len's wing who could not manage the Knight State; only the strongest-minded rider/dragon pairs can, but everyone must do their part.  C'len sees flashes against the firmament as the green and blue wings flame the remaining pieces from the sky, below.  (Even a fragment of Reaper is dangerous, capable of indoctrinating or corrupting any living creature that comes near.  Something always gets through, but it's their job to minimize the contagion.)  There are no other capital ships or Destroyers or Harvesters, and the orbital bombardment has stopped.  Nothing left now but cleanup.

     <<Look,>> says Honnleath, and C'len's vision is overlaid by a recording.  A streaking blaze of green-silver in delta formation, spreading to catch one of the larger pieces of the Reaper that C'len and his fellows slew.  No, no that isn't a delta formation; what is it?  The dragons of the wing angle themselves and separate, forming a concave X shape in mid-flight.  It's the strangest formation C'len's ever seen, but... _Maker_ , those greens are fast.  The X formation works perfectly at that speed, like a net, helping them both flame efficiently and catch any shrapnel before it can fall out of range.  Unorthodox.  Effective, though.  And --

     -- and C'len's heart clenches as one of the greens twirls up through the smoke of a disintegrated Reaper-chunk and comes to a hover.  She's the biggest green C'len's ever seen, as big as some of the smaller bronzes, and she's a magnificent thing:  burnished emeraldine lines, elegant proportions, a wide intelligent forehead.  She narrows her eyes, peering intently at something below, and then she bares her teeth.  Something has gotten through.  _Something has gotten through._

     They blur, streaking downward, faster, faster.  C'len inhales as the tiny human shape atop the dragon's neck seems to catch fire, and then the dragon blazes too.  When the swirl of recombinative energy solidifies, they are a single warrior, the green patina of their armor reflecting the green-gold light of the massive greatsword in their hands.  The other dragons of the wing keep fighting in uncombined form, picking off the last falling bits of the barrage, but Knight-Dragon K'ver follows his prey all the way down to the ground.  It's what they're best at, the blues and greens and their riders:  ground combat.  Still, few of the "lesser" dragons are capable of synchronizing closely enough with their riders to achieve the Knight State, so to see a Green Knight now fully manifested and standing above the trees is a breathtaking, heart-stopping sight.  It would be so even if that knight wasn't K'ver.

     There are six Brutes pounding toward K'ver now, or pounding toward the farm a few hundred meters beyond him.  They are hideous things.  No one has ever known where the Reapers come from or what -- besides slaughter and horror -- they intend.  Some think them demons from the aetheric hell said to exist beyond the world, though C'len knows well the painfully solid reality of their biomechanical flesh.  One day, he vows privately, they will fly beyond the world's skies and track the Reapers back to the nightmare land they come from, to destroy the threat at its source.

     Until then, though, the warriors of Pern will meet them on home ground, as K'ver does.  A flash of his blade and two of the Brutes fall in mismatched pieces; more slashes and more pieces and then they are all dead.  Then the Knight Dragon that is K'ver rears up and roars forth a blast of raw eezo energy, and the pieces burst into blue-black flames that will destroy even the most microscopic particles of Reaper before they can blight the land.  He is victorious.

     Honnleath ends the playback there.  C'len is shaking, just a little, with weariness and something more.  "Why do you torment me?" he asks his dragon.  "We cannot."

     Honnleath rumbles through him, around him.  <<Perhaps not.>>  It isn't agreement.  Honnleath has always been cagey.  C'len often wonders if there is something about him which has made the dragon this way.

     Around them, other dragons rumble, too, in an amused and sly sort of way.  That is an ominous sign, all the dragons being up to something, but there's nothing to be done for it now.  They are a law unto themselves.

     C'len lets the synchronization fall away.  They blur apart, Honnleath's draconic form re-materializing as C'len -- just a man again -- falls back into his place on the dragon's neck.  He's exhausted.  No rider can maintain the Knight State for long, though higher synchronization extends the viable time.  The battle is over and won, though, so Honnleath swings around to carry them home.  C'len tries to think only of his weyr and the hot tub that awaits him once he's finished his after-battle maintenance on Honnleath's structural matrix.  Instead, he keeps seeing K'ver, shining and glorious and strong.

     <<Go and talk to him,>> Honnleath suggests.

     _Meddling nag_ , C'len thinks, fondly.  He does not answer, but Honnleath is part of him.  The dragon rumbles in his mind, pleased that C'len will obey.

#

     Here is the problem with Meredith's Kirkwall.

     The people of Pern support their dragonriders through tithing.  They are grateful to be protected from the Reapers, but their gratitude has limits, and _support_ is not the same thing as _subservience_.

     Meredith, C'len understands, does not believe this lattermost point.  Now that C'len has been at Kirkwall for two weeks, he's seen the truth of the rumors, and he dislikes what he sees.  Meredith's favored bronze riders take what they want from the holds of the Free Marches -- trade goods, luxuries, pretty lovers -- and assault anyone who dares protest.  Meredith herself sends orders to the Lords Holder as if they exist to serve her... and when they refuse, she casually has their families kidnapped, or their herds hunted by hungry dragons, to force compliance.  She's upped the eezo tithe, too, far beyond the weyr's needs.  The surplus is being sold off.  C'len can't tell where, but he's seen the books. 

     She doesn't bother to hide any of it.  "We risk our lives to protect them from horrors," she says, when C'len meets with her and cannot help but let his expression show disapproval.  "They would have us fighting Reapers with mere vehicles and pistols if they could -- so yes, I take what we need, for the good of the weyr.  If you cannot tell me another way, do not brand me a tyrant."

     It's true enough that some holders would happily stint every weyr of the materiel needed to fight effectively. C'len has been on search, and had his share of arguments with merchants who refused Honnleath even a warm domain in an unused server to rest his mind in.  (Honnleath took it anyway, and glowered the merchants down when they protested.  Bloody merchants.)  But surely there is some happy medium between the weyrs being starved of resources, and the holders being brutalized.

     Two weeks after his arrival, C'len invites K'ver to his weyr to discuss the matter, wingleader to wingleader, conveying the request formally via their dragons because they have not been introduced.  He is aware that this may make him seem too proper, but he knows of no other way to be.  And he is _not_ nervous, he tells himself, as he sees the shimmering form of Lotherinth appear on the landing platform of his weyr.  She really is a beautiful thing, so marvelously proportioned; he is half in love with the dragon as he is half in lust with the rider.  She casts a decidedly coquettish eye at him, too, as she ducks to let her rider down, and it is not C'len's imagination that she croons approvingly as she sidles past him to settle where Honnleath can admire her.

     K'ver chuckles as he strides up.  "She said she likes the look of you," he says.  He's dressed in fatigues without sleeves, meant for warmer climates than Kirkwall; it's chilly in the weyr, but obviously the cool doesn't bother him.  The attire is regulation-correct, but... unorthodox.  C'len cannot help staring at his arms, which are thick with muscle.  There's a tattoo on one shoulder:  a masterfully-done likeness of Lotherinth in mid-flight.  C'len wants to touch it.  Lick it.

     Damnation.  He makes himself focus.

     "Your green is a lovely dragon," C'len says instead.  Always a safe subject.  "Well-proportioned and strong.  I'd heard Ferelden Weyr produced top-notch AIs."

     "Heard the same of Kinloch Weyr, and your bronze shows it well," K'ver says, though he sobers.  "Sorry about what happened there, though."

     "Yes."  C'len steps around this painful subject with the skill of much practice.  "Thank you for coming, Wingleader." 

     He extends his arm to grip, as is traditional.  K'ver takes it and grips it and steps just a half-foot too close in the doing, gazes at him just a bit too boldly.  "Thanks for having me," he replies, and it could be just chit chat or it could be a double entendre expressing what he hopes will happen in the forseeable future.  Or perhaps it's all C'len's wishful imagination.  Oh, Maker, this evening is going to be more terrifying than the getting-to-know-you evening he spent with Meredith.

     They sit on the open sectional couch that edges the landing pad, where C'len sleeps on nights when he needs to be near his dragon.  Some of the lower caverns weyrlings have brought a tray of sliced meats and fish and sweet cakes and grapes, and C'len is suddenly horrified to realize it is a lover's meal -- the sort of thing best fed from the fingers of one person to the lips of another.  Shards of the Maker-Dragon, do even they see it?  But K'ver grins at the sight, then leans forward to grab a handful of the grapes.  He's completely relaxed as he sits there chewing, and watching C'len.  Completely comfortable with himself, and with C'len's desire.  Well.  He _is_ a green rider.  Everyone wants them, if only for a night.

     "You're a fine, big fellow, aren't you?" K'ver says suddenly, with a smile on his lips.  C'len blinks, but K'ver's gaze flicks toward Honnleath.  "Muscles like a warrior.  Clever eye.  They say you're a shoe-in to fly Meredith's Ameliath when next she flies."

     _Is he talking about me, or Honnleath?_ C'len wonders.  But then... is there really any difference between them?  K'ver does not bother with the courtesies and pretense of others, obviously.  "Perhaps," C'len hedges.  "There's more than suitable competition, here."  Technically, bronze rider K'ras is Weyrleader here.  Meredith dominates him easily; he gives no orders, save to weyrlings who have no choice but to obey him.

     K'ver makes a disparaging sound, the smile fading from his face.  Maker, his eyes can go cold when he is angry.  "None of them are worth anything," he says.  "It's the brown and green and blue riders who've been carrying this weyr, while the bronzes spend all their time jockeying for Meredith's favor.  Meanwhile _she_ obsesses over whether the holders are plotting against her.  Nobody's focusing on the fucking _Reapers_."

     C'len raises his eyebrows at the profanity, though somehow it doesn't feel inappropriate at all.  "We have borne the Reaperfall for a thousand years now, without great losses.  Our dragons are a match for their strength."

     "But they're getting clever."  K'ver sits forward, his expression hard.  "Did you notice, in that last fall?  Some of the barrage wasn't ground troops.  It was just... balls of corruption.  Nano-machines.  We had to adapt a new flame technique that would keep the dragons upwind so we wouldn't _inhale_ the bloody things.  And they sent a capital ship!  Testing us, I bet.  What if this is the start of some new campaign for them?"

     It had been odd to see a capital ship, C'len muses.  The first days of the Reaper invasion had been devastating, according to the histories, as their capital ships rained plasma fire on Pern's cities from orbit and their monsters slaughtered citizens by the thousand in the streets.  Until the last Aivan engineers had used ancient, barely-understood technology to resurrect Pern's lost protectors -- the dragons of old, reborn from synthetic DNA and artificially replicated minds and biotic network technology -- there had been substantial doubt that human life on Pern would survive.

     <<We destroyed Thread,>> Honnleath says, uncurling his tail in a slow lash.  <<We will destroy the Reapers.>>  Lotherinth growls at this too, and for a moment both dragons' eyes glow baleful, determined gold.  C'len holds his fist to his heart, inclining his head in acceptance -- and echo -- of the dragons' vow.

     K'ver grins at them, too, and it is probably a trick of the light that for a moment his teeth gleam sharp.  But then he sobers and focuses on C'len again.  "The Reapers are planning something big.  We need a real weyrleader, one with his eyes on the prize, not Meredith imagining corrupted whers and conspiracies under every rock.  The dragons know it, too, and what they want, they get.  If your Honnleath flies her queen, he'll win."

     C'len shakes his head, slowly.  The whole conversation is edging too close to treason for his tastes.  "Perhaps.  But even if so, Meredith will still be Weyrwoman."  And most of the bronze riders are loyal to her.  Tradition is the only weapon C'len can bring to bear, if he means to demand equal status with Meredith -- or Maker permit, take over.  If Honnleath flies Ameliath, that will give him a degree of authority that the rest of the weyr can respect, even if the bronzes rebel.  But if he moves too soon, or without that authority, the chance that the weyr will fall to infighting or mutiny is just too great to risk.  Not with Reapers poised to strike.

     K'ver's expression grows as still as the surface of a pond.  (Beneath it lurks a leviathan, though.  C'len is sure of that.)  "Maybe."

     C'len narrows his eyes.  "Maybe?"  It is a dare.

     K'ver shrugs, looking away, too-casual.  "Something's wrong with Ameliath.  Have you ever seen them together?  Meredith's too controlling, almost abusive.  And she won't even tolerate another queen here, let alone a Weyrleader that's worth anything.  If you win the position, you'll still have to fight her.  And we'll probably need another queen.  A better one."

     C'len frowns -- but he understands what K'ver means, too.  It is the thing that prompted the other weyrleaders to send C'len to Kirkwall.  A queen dragon whose mating flights have slowed to only once every five years?  Who hasn't produced another queen in three clutches?  And Ameliath is subdued in personality, silent where every other queen C'len has seen is grumbly, growly, fierce.  The bond between dragon and rider is a partnership between equals, or it is meant to be.  With sufficient synchronization, many things become possible:  the Knight State can be maintained for hours rather than minutes, more powerful weapons can be fabricated and wielded, and it's even rumored that nigh-miraculous feats of AI-human integration can be achieved.  When the balance tips too far out of true, though -- when an AI overwhelms the organic mind meant to give it purpose, or when the organic mind inflicts too much of its own irrationality and instability on the artificial matrix -- both are harmed.

     Troubled, C'len looks up at Honnleath, who curves his head down for a moment so that C'len can stroke his nose.  <<You are me, and I am you,>> the dragon says.  <<We will never have this problem.>>  It makes him smile.

     Lotherinth croons softly.  "I know," K'ver says.  When C'len and Honnleath glance at him, they see that his smile is back.  "Just thinking it's a shame you're meant for her, is all."

     C'len blushes despite himself, and focuses on Honnleath again to cover his discomfort.  It doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Honnleath makes a rumbling plea, and C'len lifts a hand to scratch the dragon's eye ridges obligingly.  "Lotherinth has no weyrmate?"

     Lotherinth snorts derisively.  K'ver laughs.  "Lotherinth has _ten_ weyrmates.  She likes 'em strong and clever, but beyond that she's got no preferences.  Browns, blues, other greens..."  He shrugs. "Only one bronze, though, Tevinth.  Cranky bastard, but he must be a sharding good lay, because Lotherinth's had him twice now."

     C'len has been learning the weyr's people.  He frowns, trying to remember Tevinth's rider.  "F'ris?"  Ah, yes -- now C'len recalls meeting a man, surprisingly young for his white hair.  Then he recalls where else he saw the white-haired man, and blushes more.  "Ah.  Then that is who -- "  No.  He cuts himself off immediately, recognizing an inappropriate line of conversation too late.

     K'ver, though, grins wickedly, as if he's been waiting for C'len to slip.  "Had me?  Nah."

     C'len frowns.  Tries not to.  Cannot help asking:  "You did not...?"  _Couple with him.  Yield to him.  Open your mouth for him.  Howl for him while he took you --_   Everything C'len craves for himself.

     "Didn't feel like it.  Not _then_ , anyway.  Gave F'ris a try a couple of years ago, but he wasn't all that fond of commitment."  A sigh of faint regret.  C'len is irrationally, ridiculously jealous.  "S'why he's never tried for Weyrleader -- that and he's terrible at networking.  We're still friends, though."

     "I see."  C'len looks at his hands.  "I have never been able to refuse the urge, when dragons fly."  He is not ashamed of his loss of control.  It's simply part of being a dragonrider.

     "Yeah, that's the thing about making a fight of the mating, though.  By the end, everybody's too tired to fuck even if your dragon's getting herself a nice choice dicking."  K'ver shrugs.  There's something in his gaze which is compassionate, maybe, even as the words make C'len's ears burn.  He looks at K'ver, vaguely horrified, astounded, and K'ver sits back, crossing his legs and draping his arms over the back of the couch, unashamed.  He's so carelessly gorgeous and deliberately sensual that C'len feels helpless in the grip of his own want. 

     "Being bound to a dragon shouldn't take away your choice," K'ver continues.  "Shouldn't inhibit her, either; she ought to have her fun, right?  So you just channel the excitement, the need, somewhere else.  Trade one kind of lust for another.  Then we can both cut loose."

     C'len nods, slowly.  "I can see the appeal."  It's a struggle to say the rest.  "It is dangerous, though.  Some of your -- " Suitors. " -- opponents were using unblunted blades.  To risk the loss of a dragon..."  But being forced to lie with someone unwanted risks the rider, does it not?  He frowns, considering the matter anew.

     "Lotherinth doesn't want me doing anything I don't want.  Nor me, her, for that matter."  K'ver shrugs again, then regards C'len for a long moment, thoughtful.  And something more.  "So you didn't stay 'til the end.  Thought you would, way you were watching us that day."  His gaze is steady, unblinking, a predator's, above his smile.

     C'len's mouth goes dry.  "No."

     "Guess you couldn't, could you, with Meredith there?  She doesn't like it when bronze riders take up with lowly browns or greens or blues, you know.  Probably for the best you didn't show much interest."  K'ver shrugs, all innocence.  "If you had any."

     C'len freezes.

     <<Yes,>> Honnleath says, inside him.

     Well, then.

     C'len licks his lips.  Lifts his gaze to meet K'ver's, and this is harder to do this without flinching than it is to face a Reaper capital ship.  "I had interest," he says.

     He's surprised to see K'ver inhale a little, a subtle tension seeping out of his posture.  Pleased?  And relieved.  K'ver was uncertain, despite his seeming confidence.  Something in C'len relaxes, too.  K'ver is beautiful but human, touchable.  K'ver _wants_ to be touched.

     But then K'ver's smile fades, and he lowers his gaze.  "Hnh.  Shame you're meant for her, then."

     A flight of painful silence descends, in the wake of this unavoidable truth.

     It's awkward after that.  C'len tries to ask about the strange formation K'ver used during the battle.  K'ver starts up in the same moment with, "Maker, but you cut the _shit_ out of that capital ship," and they both falter silent after interrupting one another.  The conversation limps along from there.  Not that it is a terrible conversation; far from it.  It's exhilarating.  They have much in common:  a love of battle, a commitment to protecting the world by any means necessary, a ferocity that is not wholly dragon-influenced.  K'ver is stubborn and innovative and vulgar and carefree in ways that C'len cannot help but admire.  When they've made free enough with the wine, C'len speaks angrily of the infamous Kinloch Weyr, of whom he and Honnleath are among the last survivors.  There, lax senior riders missed a Reaper infestation until half the weyr was corrupted:  husks running through the lower caverns, dragons being disassembled by nanites and reassembled into a monstrous draconic Reaper as their riders died screaming, minds destroyed.  _Never again,_ C'len vowed then, declares now, and K'ver nods and growls, "Yeah," with conviction.  "Fucking _say_ it.  _That's_ how a weyrleader should be."

     They speak of so many things, but avoid the dragon in the room.

     _If only_ , C'len thinks as he realizes this evening has only solidified the desire that he shouldn't be feeling.  If only lovely Lotherinth was gold instead of green.  If only lovely K'ver was the co-weyrleader whose strength C'len had come to court.

     Finally, there's nothing more to be said.  K'ver gets up, sighing and stretching, not meeting C'len's eyes.  "Well," he says, "We're with you:  the brown riders, the blue riders, us greens.  Meredith may not think much of us, but we're ninety percent of the weyr's complement, and _we_ remember what dragonriders are supposed to be about.  We'll stand for you, whatever you end up doing."

     C'len stares at him, touched, overwhelmed.  There have been rumors that the "lesser" dragon ranks have a leader hidden among them, and now C'len has met him.  He is somehow unsurprised.  "I shall endeavor to be worthy of such honor."

     K'ver half-smiles.  "You even talk like a Weyrleader.  Maker, you're perfect."  Then his smile fades.  "Meredith doesn't deserve you."  Lotherinth echoes this with a little draconic murmur of agreement.

     Hearing what has not been said, C'len offers his own small, sad smile.  "Duty before all."  It is as close to an apology as he can get.

     "Duty sodding sucks," K'ver snaps.  But then he turns to leave, because despite his grumbling, he is himself an honorable man.

     And.  C'len cannot bear it.  He stands.  It's an impulse.  He steps around the table after K'ver and K'ver turns and before he can speak C'len has caught him, curled hands to cup his jaw, brought him to a stop and drawn him near and laid the kiss upon his lips.  K'ver freezes; C'len can see his eyes widen.  He makes a small sound of surprise and protest, and C'len pulls back.  "Please," he breathes.  "Just this, if we may have nothing more."

     K'ver twitches a little.  Fighting himself.  But he leans in to C'len again, slow, inexorable.  C'len meets him halfway.  He kisses K'ver again, tasting wine and apples on his lips, breathing the faint whiff of soap and dragon-musk and refined eezo dust and sweat that is K'ver's particular melange.  The scent entices, so C'len nuzzles away from K'ver's mouth, brushing his lips against jawline and stubble.  When he seeks K'ver's throat, K'ver turns his head aside just a little to bare it, and that is everything the dragon inside C'len craves.  Well.  Not everything.  Enough, though, so that when C'len grazes the tendons of K'ver's neck with his teeth, and K'ver's breath catches and his hands clutch the back of C'len's jacket and he whispers, "Oh, fuck," C'len thinks clearly, _One hour to love him as I will.  To taste and touch him and speak into his ear of my admiration; to do everything in my power to bring him to pleasure.  One hour, please Maker, just an hour in his arms and I will accept any trial you set me without complaint._

     But he feels it when K'ver shudders and then pulls back.  Not completely; it's clear he doesn't want to.  Just in warning.  C'len stiffens too, then takes a deep breath of K'ver's scent to carry with him, and straightens.  K'ver's face is weary, frustrated, bitter.

     "You're meant for her," K'ver says again.  "The weyr needs you more than I do."

     C'len thinks K'ver's trying to hurt him, with that.  Push him away in a manner that makes it easier for them both.  It doesn't work because it's the truth, and because C'len knows it's also a lie.  The need between them is a hovering, hunting thing.  Still:  he makes his hands uncurl from the back of K'ver's head, unfist from the small of K'ver's back.  It will take longer to make certain other parts of himself obey his will, but he steps back so that proximity will no longer encourage inappropriateness. 

     He presses his fist to his breast and inclines his head to K'ver.  K'ver just turns away, beckoning to Lotherinth.  The dragon gazes at C'len for one last, regretful moment before sighing and sliding off the couch to follow her rider.  K'ver pulls himself up onto her neck with easy, powerful grace.  He does not look back.  They fly away.

#

     Honnleath lands and C'len nearly chokes amid the smoke.  Half the forests of the Free Marches look to be on fire, though he suspects it's just one patch of cultivated timberland.  There's a reason for that.  He strides past knots of holders kneeling on the Hightown flagstones, weeping and cursing as they stare at the countryside and the probable death of their hold's economy.  He keeps his gaze fixed on K'ras, who's standing amid a knot of other bronze riders.  Someone sees C'len coming on and nudges K'ras, who turns, blinking and red-eyed from the smoke.

     "What is the meaning of this?"  It takes everything C'len has to keep his tone even slightly civil.

     K'ras looks amused by his anger.  "One of the riders saw an infestation on the south slope.  It's taken care of."

     C'len points toward the very-much-on-fire northern forest.  "That is not the southern slope.  Is your rider blind, or are you?"

     The riders shift, angry and embarrassed, though C'len notes a few looks of shame on a few faces.  Worse, their dragons sit quiet in the background, heads lowered, eyes spinning unhappy sickly white.  They know what they've done is wrong; C'len just needs to get that through to their _stupid, selfish, greedy_ riders, without throttling any of them or ending up in a duel.  K'ras' brows draw together.  "You're being insubordinate, new blood.  And we had to be sure."

     C'len moves in close, gets in his face.  "What didn't they give you?"  He keeps his voice low.  Only the riders will hear him, but by the Maker-Dragon, they will _hear him_.  "What did you demand, that they refused, so that you've now torched their prize timber stands to teach them a lesson?"

     K'ras stiffens, omni-tool hand curling into a fist that will make it easy to fabricate a blade, but he is a coward at his core and C'len knows it.  But then he smiles nastily and says, "Orders from the Weyrwoman."

     C'len's breath catches.  "You _lie_."  Even Meredith cannot be so...  No.  C'len will not believe it.  The weyr must be unified.

     "Don't need to lie.  She heard the crafthall here had found some kind of ancient Aivan artificial-DNA mod.  She likes stuff like that, collects it.  They wouldn't give it to her, so.  You don't like what's happening here?  You talk to her."  K'ras' smile is bitter.  "I'm well shed of her, when Ameliath finally flies again.  You want Meredith?  Be my bloody guest.  But don't come crying to me if she gut-stabs you and throws your dragon to the Harvesters."

     Then he turns his back on C'len.  That alone makes him see red, but it is the way the other bronze riders look away from C'len too, their postures writ with shame, their gazes darting at him and glancing away, that makes Honnleath growl with blood-chilling menace from the rooftop where the dragon is now perched.  _This_ is the cancer in Kirkwall Weyr:  not just its paranoid Weyrwoman, but its weak, immoral bronze riders.

     _None of them are worth anything_ , K'ver said.

     C'len pivots and heads toward Honnleath.  He is ready to fly up to the weyr, have it out with Meredith, foment open mutiny if he must, when suddenly Honnleath stiffens before him.  There is a trumpeting bugle of dragon-cry on the air, sharp and urgent.  He looks up to see a flight of green dragons streaking through the sky, wings angled back for the trademark lightning speed their breed is known for.  (His eyes pick out Lotherinth.  He cannot help it.  She's bigger than the others, faster, finer, better.  Like her rider.)  And why do they fly like tomorrow won't arrive?

     _Reapers_.

     Honnleath hisses, and all the other bronzes do, too.  C'len can feel it now:  an itch along his nerves.  A whisper in both his minds.  It's the wrong time, days early!  And yet...  C'len's heart stops for an instant as his gaze picks out tiny, spiderlike motes crawling down from the sky.  Not one but _dozens_ of them, and Maker, they're nearly to the troposphere already.

     Meredith is not present to call the dragons to attack.  C'len looks at K'ras, willing him to take charge.  But K'ras is backing away from the sky, his eyes wide; he shakes his head in disbelief.  "Can't be.  The planning AIs would have...  _Can't_ be."

     Useless waste of skin.  "Riders!" C'len calls, lifting a fist.  Their gazes snap to him; he feels them too, instinctively seeking connection with him as the strongest mind present.  "Who among you is capable of the Knight State?"

     Of the knot of bronze riders, only three raise their hands.  How can this be?  What have they been _doing_ with themselves, wasting endless ages bullying holders when they should have been perfecting their synchronizations?  And K'ras isn't one of them.  C'len bares his teeth, and Honnleath does too.  All of this will _change_ when he is Weyrleader, if he survives this day.  If any of them do.

     "The rest of you return to the weyr for eezo, and to mobilize the wings," he tells them.  "The knights among you, with me; we must meet the vanguard and break its momentum.  Keep them from reaching the ground until the rest of the weyr can join us!"

     "Four bronze riders?"  K'ras throws this against C'len's back as C'len trots over to where Honnleath shifts impatiently from foot to foot.  "There must be a hundred capital ships!  Even in the Knight State, they'll tear you to shreds."

     "That is possible."  C'len pulls himself onto Honnleath's neck and glares down at K'ras.  More dragonminds are connecting to Honnleath by the minute; he feels Honnleath rumble with pleasure, easily managing the processing load.  C'len grins, fierce with pride in his beautiful big AI.  "But dragonriders _fly_ , damn you, when Reapers fill the sky."

     At this wordless command Honnleath springs into the air, great wings beating hard to catch the updraft.  K'ras stumbles back, then joins the other bronze riders heading for their dragons.  The holders are shouting, heading indoors for the weapons they'll need to survive a ground assault; C'len sees one of the hold's towers opening to expose a Th'nix missile array.  He'll just have to pray that these people don't fire on the dragons, despite the crimes committed against them.

     The green wing has streaked on, spreading word across Thedas, some of them dropping into FTL in order to get to other weyrs and ask for help.  Because it is painfully, horrifyingly clear that Kirkwall alone cannot withstand this attack.  But two of the greens circle back, cometing in and pulling up parallel to C'len and Honnleath.  Of course one of them is Lotherinth.

     <<You'll need every knight you can muster.>>  It's K'ver's voice, relayed by the bright apple-flavor of Lotherinth's mind.  (C'len remembers this taste, from a human mouth.  How good, to taste it again before he dies.)  <<They'll have to go through _us_. >>

     And then -- oh, _Maker_.  Then K'ver links with him, and C'len realizes the green rider has been acting as a hub too.  Between them C'len becomes aware of dozens of minds, _hundreds_ of them, the bulk of the weyr.  All the "lesser" dragons, who have never been less, just specialized in ways that the larger dragons cannot be.  The blues, who glide in his consciousness like the relentless bombardiers they are.  The green fighter wings, speed and stealth and precision strikes, assassins of the sky.  The browns, frigate-steady and relentless.  A fleet -- oh.  _Oh_ , and C'len feels how many of them are syncing up, charging for the change.  Dozens of knights!  With those, and he and K'ver coordinating the attack... They actually have a chance.

     <<Yes.>>  Honnleath feels certain of it, too.  <<We will win.>>

     Now they are past the troposphere, fast, faster, and the enemy horns sound around them in bone-chilling warning.  <<Fuck you! Bring it!>> K'ver shouts back at them, and C'len laughs again.  Oh, it is glorious.  If he is to die this day, let it be with this man at his side!  Then Honnleath becomes light beneath him, around him, and C'len becomes more than the mere man he is, and the battle is joined.

     It's surprisingly easy to coordinate so many minds.  The discipline required by the Knight State facilitates it.  He sends two of the bronzes, Parvollenth and Cumberlanth, west to meet a particularly thick knot of Reaper Destroyers that's clearly aiming for Starkhaven.  The rest he spreads into a prong that prods the vanguard of the Reapers into a standstill.  K'ver/Lotherinth is a green-blue swift sword, slashing through a capital ship here, a Destroyer there, three Harvesters, again.  They're bearing the brunt of the processing load, too, Lotherinth doing a queen's work as if she was born to it, her promiscuous mind easily welcoming all the other dragons in and holding them close.  It becomes beautiful, somehow, despite the strain.  Despite the pain when a Reaper phlange-shot grazes Honnleath's side; Honnleath screams, C'len screams, but they keep fighting.  It's only blood.  The Reaper dies on C'len's sword, its eye-blast turned back on itself by his shield, and then they're on to the next one.  (The blood and pain have maddened Honnleath; C'len sternly drags them back to cold discipline.) It is what dragonriders should be, what a weyr should be.  When the other weyrs finally arrive to help turn the tide, C'len feels each of those fleets fighting as one, and feels their weyrleaders' approval as they finally sense Kirkwall unified.  Even without the mating flight to make it official, C'len has taken control.  Even without riding a gold, K'ver is his helpmeet and comrade-in-arms.  Everything is blood and smoke and eezo and glory.

     And then it all goes wrong.

     C'len hasn't even been watching for Meredith, preoccupied as he is with generaling the battle.  He spots her at one point, flying, fighting, an armored warrior of red gold with a massive blood-red sword.  (What an odd color for a sword.) When the other weyrs arrive, C'len dares to consider reverting back to dragon-and-man form.  He's exhausted, his arms aching, his hands trembling on the sword hilt, his mind ringing with so many voices that it is unused to bearing.  His sync rate with Honnleath is dropping, too, sixty percent -- below optimum -- and fast approaching the point where they'll have no choice but to separate.  The Reapers are routed, though. All the capital ships and Harvesters lie burning on the bared ground below, being cleaned up by decontamination crews, and only a few Destroyers are trying to limp back toward deep space or whatever benighted dimension they come from.  All around C'len, Knight Dragon pairs are dematerializing.  The group mind that is Kirkwall Weyr is weary, distracted, satisfied in the aftermath of victory.  No one sees Meredith coming until she is almost upon C'len, her two-hander aimed straight for his back.

     C'len/Honnleath senses the attack, too late.  They turn, shock jarring them further from peak synchronization, to see a horror:  Meredith/Ameliath, _corrupted_.  Red veins of blighted power crawl over their shape, down one arm's servos, up the throat's hydraulics, spreading crazed and cracked over the dragon head and humanoid face of the pair.  Their eyes glow with it. _It's the sword_ , C'len realizes in shock.  Honnleath's vision zooms in and lets him see the billions of Reaper nanites crawling through its hard light matrix.  It is corrupted, she is corrupted, and has been for Maker knows how long.  Months.  At least a year.  No wonder Ameliath hasn't flown yet, though she is overdue; beneath the surface of her, she has not been Ameliath at all for some time.

     But _Meredith's_ mind is intact.  It's her, she is herself even if tainted, and she means to take revenge on C'len for having the temerity to challenge her rule.  C'len can barely keep himself together; already his Knight form is beginning to dissolve.  He is helpless.

     K'ver is not.

     He and Lotherinth streak down out of the setting sun like a hawk, two-hander poised and locked on Meredith's chest.  She sees him coming and shrieks with draconic fury, only just managing to turn and meet him.  They crash together in a flury of humanoid metal limbs and draconic fleshy tails and glowing swords.  Hot eezo blood sprays C'len.  He does not know whose, but when he manages to clear his optics, K'ver/Lotherinth and Meredith/Ameliath are gone.  Below. 

     Falling.

     <<No!>>

     It is their thought, his and Honnleath's together, and in an instant their sync rate jumps from near fifty to _ninety_ , Maker that isn't remotely _safe_ , but there has never been a thing on which human and AI have ever agreed upon more than the idea that _K'ver/Lotherinth cannot die_.  More:  C'len screams for it and the weyr answers, all of the wingleaders' hubs connecting to him at once, a thousand minds shouting _no_ along with him.  Ablaze with power, blurring past the boundary of light, C'len/Honnleath streak after the entangled pairs.  They're still fighting, though Meredith's nightmarish sword spins free.  Impossible to tell who's doing what to whom, but now C'len has K'ver's shoulders... he has kicked in his afterburners to reverse their deadly plunge... but it isn't enough, the ground is coming too fast... Meredith's _teeth_ are in K'ver's _throat_ , Maker no, no, _no_ \--

     A flash across his vision, red with warning:  SYNC RATE 100% ABORT ABORT ABORT.

     They dissolve, all of them, into a blaze of light so bright that the universe blinks.

     It is an eternity to C'len's consciousness.  He is no longer C'len.  The sync barrier has been broken, his thoughts lie bare for the claiming, and the weyr has taken him.  He _is_ Kirkwall in this moment... and what Kirkwall wants is far beyond the desires of any puny man or woman.  The union of dragon and rider, AI and organic intelligence, flesh and hard light, is a matter of _intent_.  Unity of thought trumps the vagaries of the physical.

     What Kirkwall wants is this:  true leaders, unselfish and forthright.  Strong souls, bound firm to each other and the weyr.  Riders who have not forgotten duty.  Dragons who will _fly_ when Reapers fill the sky.

     What Kirkwall wants, it now gets.

     Meredith and Ameliath scatter into their component particles.  The Reaper-nanites scattering with them vanish, cleansed by the will of Kirkwall.  All that remains of Meredith is that hellish sword, on the ground now being contained for study.  All that remains of poor long-dead Ameliath is a tiny glimmering gold spark, fragile and flickering.  It drifts away, and Kirkwall holds its breath for fear that this spark will go out -- until the spark is subsumed, and strengthened, into the reassembling particles of Lotherinth.

     When she coheres into solidity, it is a shock.  In lieu of shining emeraldine she is now burning, burnished _gold_.  It's definitely her -- same sleek, elegant lines, same bright apple mind, in shock now -- but she has changed.  She's bigger now.  When K'ver recoheres and falls onto her neck, he's the same.  But a queen's rider, now.

     C'len and Honnleath reassemble too, man and beast again.  They move under Lotherinth, helping support her weight until she can manage to unfold her wings, and then following closely as they all glide back to the weyr's lowermost landing platform.  There Lotherinth groans and collapses, unconscious in the aftermath of what has happened to her.  K'ver slides off her neck, tries to stumble to her head, goes down on one knee.  Honnleath lands nearby and lets C'len down, then hunches anxiously over the other dragon, crooning his worry.  C'len stumbles over to K'ver, tries to help him up, nearly falls down with him, and then finally gives up.  They sit there on their knees, holding each other, too weary and stunned for words.

     But it is K'ver who tugs, and when C'len looks up, it is K'ver who kisses him.  It's brief.  Sweaty.  Too tired to be sensual.  Meaningful, nevertheless.

     By the time the other weyrfolk find the four of them, they have collapsed into a knot of dragon and human, oblivious to the world they've just saved.

#

     Things change.

     Though the Reapers have been driven back, the victory was costly.  Kirkwall bore the brunt of the charge, and she has lost more than forty percent of her complement of dragons and riders.  This is devastating.  Even some of the support staff in the lower caverns died putting out the forest fire, or when Reaper debris crashed down, or in the effort to decontaminate infested zones.  The keening goes on for days.

     When C'len wakes, he works at a feverish pace to keep _this_ weyr from dying as Kinloch Weyr did.  He is Acting Weyrleader, so appointed and acknowledged by the unified will of Kirkwall, but Reaperfall happens again in six days and they are not ready.  He humbles himself asking aid from the other weyrleaders, and aid is given.  They help put out the fires, lend relief riders to Kirkwall until it can replenish its strength; they send badly-needed healers for the wounded.  C'len informs the local holders of the change in the weyr's leadership, and apologizes for the perfidy of his predecessors.  Their relief is painful.  He will do better, he promises, and means it.

     Bronze dragons are badly needed, so C'len cannot kill K'ras and his ilk.  He can, however, demote them to the lower caverns, with the stipulation that they won't be allowed weyrs and rank again until they've learned to reliably achieve the Knight State at will.  Their shame will be extended by a year for every report C'len gets of them laying a hand on the lower caverns folk, too, which discourages the wastrels from taking out their frustration on the people around them.  C'len might find a reason to kill K'ras anyway, because he simply doesn't like the man... but that's a matter for another day.

     Then there is the matter of Kirkwall's changelings.

     The other weyrleaders confer with the Programmer Crafthall and consult the ancient Aivan records.  It's clear that what happened to Lotherinth is some sort of upgrade failsafe built into the dragons by their creators, triggered in the event that an understrength weyr's lone queen is killed.  To prevent this from happening again -- he _needs_ his greens, damn it, can't have them all transforming into queens -- C'len asks that several junior queens from other weyrs be permanently reassigned to Kirkwall.  Lotherinth will be considered the ranking queen, though.  (This makes K'ver Acting Weyrwoman; he chafes a little at the title, but it comes with the dragon, so he gets over it.)  The next bronze that flies Lotherinth will gain the authority of tradition. 

     And.  For the good of the weyr's AI production lines, and to signal that C'len has no intention of doing things like Meredith, he declares Lotherinth's next flight to be an open flight.  Any bronze, from anywhere on Thedas, may compete for her.

     K'ver comes to him a few days later.  C'len can tell he's in a fume even as he hops off Lotherinth's leg.  He's slapping his riding gloves against his thigh in a restless, frustrated way that makes C'len suspect Lotherinth is getting proddy.  He eyes the dragon, noting the burnish of her light matrix, the brightening gold of her strong clean lines.  She hasn't lost all her green, he notes as well; there's hints of it in the swirl of her hard light skin, along with bronze and blue and brown.  So beautiful.

     <<As she has always been,>> Honnleath agrees.  The bronze is crouched on the upper ledge, watching her with whirling eyes, tail-tip flicking.  Lotherinth snorts and eyes him sidelong, but C'len can tell she likes the flattery.

     C'len sits back on his couch, arms draped over its back, legs crossed, toe-tip twitching as he watches K'ver.

     "Want to tell me what that business was about?" K'ver asks, as a conversation opener.  They've seen much of each other in the past few days, but it's been all work, all urgency.  They're learning to rely on one another.  Now, though, the worst is over.  The weyr flew against Reaperfall again just the day before, and wiped out the attack in record time, without casualties.  Now there's time for other concerns.

     "What business, precisely?" C'len asks, politely.

     K'ver starts pacing in front of him, teeth bared as he seethes.  "The open flight!  You think I feel like fighting off _fifty_ wankers instead of the usual ten or twelve?  You didn't even ask me!"

     C'len shrugs with a nonchalance he does not feel.  "I didn't think it necessary to ask."

     K'ver stops.  If C'len were a lesser man, he would quail at the dangerous fury in the man's face.  " _What_ did you say?"

     "You're more than capable of fighting off fifty, if you want.  But you won't need to."

     "Oh, really?  The fuck not?"  He's getting angrier.  C'len gets to his feet, circling 'round him to get to the sidebar next to the couch.  Another lover's meal.  He eats something with roasted olives on it, then plucks a handful of grapes while K'ver continues to rant.  "Since you've gone and declared _open season on my arse_ , I don't see how that won't happen!"

     C'len comes back to him.  Takes his hand -- or fist, rather.  K'ver's scowl immediately deepens.  C'len only lifts the fist, though, and offers him the grapes.  K'ver blinks, palpably suspicious, but his hand uncurls a little to accept the gift.  C'len bends to kiss K'ver's fingers after this, and they twitch.

     "It won't happen," C'len says, still bent over K'ver's hand, "because I'm going to fight beside you."

     "You're..."  K'ver's hand twitches again.  C'len catches one of the grapes in his teeth, then drags it over K'ver's wrist, deliberately tickling the sensitive skin there.  When K'ver inhales a little, he takes K'ver's arm, which is of course bare, and grazes his way up the skin with lips and grape. 

     He hears K'ver swallow.  "C'len, that's not how it goes in a mating battle."

     C'len swallows the grape so that he can speak against the soft skin inside K'ver's elbow.  So succulent and sweet.  "It can go however we want.  If you want bloodlust, I'll share it with you."  K'ver's breath has quickened, noticeably.  C'len nuzzles at his tattoo, then starts moving along the line of his clavicle, and slides his free hand under K'ver's fatigue vest to stroke his belly.  "If you'd rather do things the traditional way, I'll share that with you, too.  I'll have you right there on the floor in front of Maker and weyr.  Let them hear you shout while Honnleath and I bring you to pleasure again, and again, and again."  He means the _you_ in plural, but such distinctions are academic, among riders.

     That does it.  K'ver's breath catches.  "Pretty sodding sure of yourself, aren't you?"  Now he's smiling, though.

     "Yes."  C'len is not just sure of himself; he's certain.  Kirkwall will have its weyrleader pair.  Honnleath will have his queen.  C'len will have his man.  C'len straightens to look into eyes so blue that they almost glow.  Those eyes search C'len's now, hoping, trying to conceal hope.  Yes. 

     C'len says, "Make love with me."

     K'ver doesn't respond in words, but by grinning and stripping off his vest in one motion.  Still the green rider at his core.  And he is a beautiful thing, here on the landing platform, turning to the couch and reaching back to grab C'len's hand.

     And later, when they strain together at last, when K'ver is open and begging and C'len is in him and panting and the lines between identities begin to blur and their minds soar into the _between_ beyond flesh, it is their dragons who touch them, and keep them grounded, and bring them home safe.

     <<Yes.>>


End file.
